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  1. #1

    E3 Recap and General Information List

    So, folks here who have been involved in the For Honor Steam Community might remember me as Landwalker and/or just "That guy who does recaps." Well, I've scaled back my involvement in the For Honor community and holy pickled testicles Batman I'm stoked about Skull & Bones, especially as someone who sails in real life and loves the idea of a nautical game like this. So now you're going to have to put up with me from time to time as I shift my attention over to Skull & Bones, and what better way to start that than with (what else) a recap of today's E3 presentation, current announcements on the game, and (with a ton of help from Emsrelda) a recap of everything we know so far:

    E3 Presentation

    • Opened with a cinematic trailer.

    • Emphasized that the game will take play in the Indian Ocean (if you didn't already know that for some reason), in the 1720s after the virtual extermination of piracy in the Caribbean.

    • Justin Farren (creative director) gave us a rundown of the new Hunting Grounds mode (note: this is different from what was formerly known as Hunting Grounds; see below for more).
      • The Hunting Grounds is "a shared world where all player encounters matter."

      • Dynamic world that is affected by variable "Fortunes," which reveal details and changes about the game's factions, weathers, and trade routes.

      • Player gets intel on a "target".

      • The "Fortune" in the demonstration was Favorable Winds. "That means more merchants to rob, but also more competition."

      • Player gets intel on a "target" / convoy to rob, etc.

      • You start the sequence in your hide-out, an on-land base of operations that you can walk around (So yes you can leave the damn ship!)

      • Your hideout's shipyard lets you customize your ship both cosmetically and statistically. We were able to see customizations related to figureheads, wheels, helms, broadside cannons, artillery, and bow chasers, and the narrator mentioned adding a ram to the ship for this mission as well. The "Combat" customizations all have statistical impacts, with different weapons having different characteristics. The "Intimidation" customizations appear to be strictly cosmetic.

      • AI "Empire" factions are present in the open world, both in the form of ships to fight and rob, and coastal forts. We know for sure that Portugal and Great Britain are two of the empires, but no word on how many or who else might be in the game (I'd guess Netherlands and France, personally).

      • Players can actually disguise their ships to deceive "imperial" entities. In the demo, they disguised as a Portuguese ship to sail past the naval fort without having to fight.

      • There was a glimpse in the UI that confirmed the existence of multiple types of cargo, including spices and "general goods."

      • Items/Equipment, as well as enemy ships, definitely have "levels." It's unclear what all that means.

      • Even though the demo was focused on a particular hunt, you could see in the background that there were other ships in the distance going about their business, supporting the "open, dynamic world" position.

      • The UI includes a "windex" style compass in the bottom right so you can monitor your ship's performance and angle to the wind.

      • Boarding an enemy ship appears to be a quick, cutscene-style event (you have to initiate it but once you do it plays out automatically) that's sort of an "execution" a la For Honor. You don't appear to "play out" the boarding.

      • Areas in the world have "Area Defenders" that may respond to piratical action. In the demo, the player was accosted by a Portuguese frigate after defeating and looting the trade ship.

      • It appears that in addition to having health on the hull (it's unclear if they're still using the "separate health for each side" mechanism) ships also have a "sail health efficiency" bar. Damaging the sails looks like it will reduce ships' mobility.

      • You can dynamically invite other players to your group during gameplay (if anyone has ever played Absolver, it reminded me of that. I'm told Division has something similar, but I don't know the Division as well.) In the demo, they invited other players to help defeat the "Area Defender."

      • You can also dynamically break your group and start killing each other to take each other's loot.

      • There are special abilities. It was unclear to me if these are for the ship classes, or for the cannon types. The abilities demonstrated were "Siege Mode" (the ship anchored and could basically fire its cannons at an extremely accelerated rate) and an "eight-shot" bow chaser ability.


      And that's pretty much it for the E3 Press Conference. However, there was also...


    E3 Interview with Justin Farren

    • Reminder: Justin is the game's Creative Director.

    • Justin emphasized that they wanted to showcase what really defines the game: Robbing people blind on the high seas.

    • Game is set in the twilight of the Golden Age of Piracy in the Indian Ocean.

    • E3 videos are to encapsulate how players will be able to "terrorize the trade routes of the Indian Ocean."

    • "Lots of Factions" in the game to oppose the players. Factions include trading companies (British East India Company and the Dutch Easy India Company) and the "fading glory empires" such as the British and Portuguese.

    • Players will also be in conflict with historical pirates like Olivier Levasseur (La Buse).

    • Players can make constant choices about how to group, whom to ally with, whom to fight, all "in the moment."

    • The game was playable for folks at E3 to see a variety of the "fortunes" previously discussed. Unfortunately, my understanding is that this was all "closed," so nothing else for us plebs to see on that front currently.


    Other Official Stuff of the Day

    • As one might imagine, the official Twitter account was pretty poppin' today. Most of it was self-congratulatory / celebratory stuff, or links to things that were already part of the E3 conference, but they also linked a new blog post detailing a couple of the gameplay modes: Hunting Grounds and Disputed Waters.
      • Disputed Waters is what we formerly knew as the Hunting Grounds: a 5v5 PvP multiplayer mode in which two teams fight over a map of treasure, with the goal being to escape with as much as possible before the pirate hunters arrive.

      • Hunting Grounds is now the name being used for the game's PvPvE dynamic-openy-world that was showcased at E3 this year. "This new mode will let them hunt merchant ships, loot trade routes, and sink enemy vessels either as a lone wolf or part of a pirate gang."

      • Before each "Hunt", you'll gather intelligence and prepare your crew and armament.

      • Out in the world, you'll always be making decisions about how to conduct yourself in every encounter.

      • You'll be able to acquire multiple types of warships, although these weren't detailed. Each of the ship types have different play styles. Presumably you can swap between them whenever you're at your Hideout.

      • In addition to the weapon customization (previously mentioned), you can also customize crewmates. It seems this will have a mechanical impact.

      • Visual customizations include sails, figureheads, wheels, paint colors, and the pirate captains themselves.


    Other Stuff

    • First of all, a big thanks to Emsrelda for gathering almost all of the following information. You should absolutely check out her master post on the official S&B subreddit.

    • Today's CGI Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEXyheRldfQ

    • Today's Gameplay Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSqGEwYUzfI

    • Yes, you can name your ship.

    • Repeat: Yes, you can leave your ship. The Hideout is all on-foot. However, there's no evidence of on-foot combat.

    • There's a sort of "ammo counter" that dictates how much you can fire before reloading. You can fire in multiple configurations (all at once, a single line at a time, etc.), which opens the doors for some tactical options.

    • It appears that players can design custom flags, which will be great. I'm sure it will also be an annoying nightmare for Ubisoft to police, but they'll figure it out eventually. Even For Honor has mostly gotten rid of the swastikas and SS symbols, and even a large percentage of the *****es.

    • There will be tons of sea shanties, all of which are being done "fresh" (so even if some of the shanties are the same songs as from Black Flag, they're being redone).


    And that's all for now. I'll be back as new information becomes available to try to keep providing people with as much as possible.
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  2. #2
    flynlion's Avatar Senior Member
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    Thanks!
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  3. #3
    The only thing I am disappointed about so far is the cutscene boarding Other than that I cannot wait for the beta and release!
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  4. #4
    I understand where people are coming from with the "boooo cutscene boarding" thing, but honestly I think it makes sense from a mechanical design standpoint and will ultimately be better for the game.

    Here's the thing about the boarding: It's basically an "execution" once the fight is already over. It was this way in Black Flag, too, since practically every single boarding was a forgone conclusion, except you had to go through the tedious process of manually going to the swivel guns, then jumping over to the ship, then climbing back onto the ship if you either shorted the jump or overshot the deck, then using the super-janky melee combat system to flail your way through a bunch of mooks, then dealing with the unskippable cutscenes that followed... over, and over, and over, and over.

    Skull & Bones is about sailing and ships and loot. Personally, I think the "cutscene boarding" is a positive in two respects:


    1. It allows the developers to focus exclusively on ship-to-ship combat. "Manual boarding" would require the development of an entirely different parallel combat system, at the risk of detracting from the quality of both the naval and the melee combat. Additionally, Black Flag's melee combat was not good (and I say this having just recently finished the game and generally enjoying it). It was awkward, clumsy, unresponsive, overly simplistic, and wholly unsuited to PvP. So any hypothetical melee combat system would have to be built from the ground up, wasting time and resources better spent elsewhere, and it might still be kind of "meh" compared to where it would need to be for something like this.

    2. The cutscene boarding cuts down on a lot of the "busy work" from Black Flag. By the time you're boarding, the fight is over, so there was never any real reason to play out the process; but you had to in Black Flag, which made capturing large numbers of ships for loot a grinding chore. I don't want Skull & Bones to feel like a chore. I want to enjoy what it's all about and not get 40-50 hours into the game thinking oh god I still need to capture like seven more ships to get enough loot to upgrade my thingamabob.


    Ultimately, I think cutscene boarding is the right call. I get that folks who wanted the game to focus more on the "cutlass" side of the piracy archetype as opposed to the "captains and cannons" side of the archetype, but at the end of the day, I want to see the focus staying on the game's strengths and its primary identity; I want to see the game eliminate "busy work" wherever it can so that players can focus on action that matters; and I want to make sure the game doesn't get "diluted" and become a hodge-podge of mediocre systems instead of a more focused number of great systems.
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  5. #5
    Originally Posted by Flawbringer Go to original post
    I understand where people are coming from with the "boooo cutscene boarding" thing, but honestly I think it makes sense from a mechanical design standpoint and will ultimately be better for the game.

    Here's the thing about the boarding: It's basically an "execution" once the fight is already over. It was this way in Black Flag, too, since practically every single boarding was a forgone conclusion, except you had to go through the tedious process of manually going to the swivel guns, then jumping over to the ship, then climbing back onto the ship if you either shorted the jump or overshot the deck, then using the super-janky melee combat system to flail your way through a bunch of mooks, then dealing with the unskippable cutscenes that followed... over, and over, and over, and over.

    Skull & Bones is about sailing and ships and loot. Personally, I think the "cutscene boarding" is a positive in two respects:


    1. It allows the developers to focus exclusively on ship-to-ship combat. "Manual boarding" would require the development of an entirely different parallel combat system, at the risk of detracting from the quality of both the naval and the melee combat. Additionally, Black Flag's melee combat was not good (and I say this having just recently finished the game and generally enjoying it). It was awkward, clumsy, unresponsive, overly simplistic, and wholly unsuited to PvP. So any hypothetical melee combat system would have to be built from the ground up, wasting time and resources better spent elsewhere, and it might still be kind of "meh" compared to where it would need to be for something like this.

    2. The cutscene boarding cuts down on a lot of the "busy work" from Black Flag. By the time you're boarding, the fight is over, so there was never any real reason to play out the process; but you had to in Black Flag, which made capturing large numbers of ships for loot a grinding chore. I don't want Skull & Bones to feel like a chore. I want to enjoy what it's all about and not get 40-50 hours into the game thinking oh god I still need to capture like seven more ships to get enough loot to upgrade my thingamabob.


    Ultimately, I think cutscene boarding is the right call. I get that folks who wanted the game to focus more on the "cutlass" side of the piracy archetype as opposed to the "captains and cannons" side of the archetype, but at the end of the day, I want to see the focus staying on the game's strengths and its primary identity; I want to see the game eliminate "busy work" wherever it can so that players can focus on action that matters; and I want to make sure the game doesn't get "diluted" and become a hodge-podge of mediocre systems instead of a more focused number of great systems.
    cutscene boarding is bad...its not good...if they really keep it like that, it will be worse than black flag
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  6. #6
    Originally Posted by DeeK_KayE Go to original post
    cutscene boarding is bad...its not good...if they really keep it like that, it will be worse than black flag
    Would you care to actually explain this position with a reasoned argument or are we just leaving this at "boo hiss I'm not being catered to therefore game is bad" and calling it a day?
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  7. #7
    Originally Posted by Flawbringer Go to original post
    Would you care to actually explain this position with a reasoned argument or are we just leaving this at "boo hiss I'm not being catered to therefore game is bad" and calling it a day?
    what argument? manual boarding is lots of fun and everyone wants it...why not add it? it wouldnt affect anything if they came up with a solution and I bet theres lots of solutions
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  8. #8
    flynlion's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally Posted by DeeK_KayE Go to original post
    what argument? manual boarding is lots of fun and everyone wants it...why not add it? it wouldnt affect anything if they came up with a solution and I bet theres lots of solutions
    "Everyone" ? Some people want it, others don't. I personally don't really care as long as the sailing mechanics are good. There are dozens of good sword fighting shooters out there if that's what you want. I'd also like some on foot and under sea exploration (diving bell?) but that's probably another story LoL
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  9. #9
    flynlion's Avatar Senior Member
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    Thanks for the write-up Flawbringer, that must have taken some time. I saw the same videos but you obviously got more info out of them than I did
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  10. #10
    Originally Posted by DeeK_KayE Go to original post
    what argument? manual boarding is lots of fun and everyone wants it...why not add it? it wouldnt affect anything if they came up with a solution and I bet theres lots of solutions
    Are you sure? Totally? Let's think about it. You want to fight manually with the time that it really take. Ok. So you think about 2 minutes at least cause who wants to fight like just with 2 hit to a soldier and stop? So ok you fight two minutes boarding and in the same time people around you start shoot you. Or worst, they can't fight aswell cause just one ship can board, or two, so they have to just wait that you alone fight someone in the enemy deck. Ok. And in PvP mode? 5 v 5. You board a ship and start the fight and the others destroy happily your ship cause it don't have the captain, you are watching the soldier in front of you so you don't know what happening around you. You are not really thinking about the type of game you talking about. This is not an AC, it's a totally different type of game. You can't have the fight like you want in this game, not in boarding at least. The only thing Ubi can try it's something strategical but you didn't like it anyway cause you want a fight like AC. So there is the problem. You not looking at this game for what it is. You looking to another game. It's like you have pieces of chess in front of you but you only want to play checkers. You are failing something.
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